Monday, September 19, 2005
Clinton Hands Bush the Smack-Down
That’s Bill, not Hillary. You know, I could see he wasn’t feeling Bush’s response to Katrina when he appeared with Bush and his Dad, and I think this article just confirms it. Among his assertions:- "You can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up."
- Mr. Clinton argued that lower-income Americans had done better under the economic policies of his administration than they are doing now, saying the storm highlighted class divisions in the country that often played out along racial lines. "It's like when they issued the evacuation order," he said. "That affects poor people differently. A lot of them in New Orleans didn't have cars. A lot of them who had cars had kinfolk they had to take care of. They didn't have cars, so they couldn't take them out."
- "This is a matter of public policy," he said. "And whether it's race-based or not, if you give your tax cuts to the rich and hope everything works out all right, and poverty goes up and it disproportionately affects black and brown people, that's a consequence of the action made. That's what they did in the 80's; that's what they've done in this decade. In the middle, we had a different policy."
Right on, President Clinton! I couldn’t agree more; this is really the suffering that we’re seeing under this Administration and I wonder (and hope) if we might see a new direction for this country. And what does the White House have to offer? The same old tired spin. Wonder boy McClellan “suggested it was unfair to link the plight of low-income victims of the hurricane to the economic policies of the Bush administration.
"There is a deep history of injustice that has led to poverty and inequality, and it will not be overcome instantly," he said, adding that President Bush "from Day 1 has been acting boldly to achieve real results for all Americans."
He added, "Do we think in new and bold ways by focusing on innovative programs that work for all Americans, or do we embrace failed policies of the past which have resulted in too many being left behind?"
Heh, yeah, those failed policies sure did hurt us, what with all that prosperity for all Americans. That reminds me of that old Onion article…
"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."
Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.
Prescient, indeed.
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the smack down is two years too late
Yeah, amen to that.